Andrew Neil: Letter from Australia

No rest for the wicked. We touch down before dawn in Sydney after a 22-hour flight and by 7 a.m. I’m live on radio 2GB with Alan Jones. I’m aware talk radio is big in Australia — as you’d expect in a country full of refreshingly forthright people — and Mr Jones’s breakfast show is one of the biggest. Predictably, talk turns to the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Aussie commentators are a bit sheepish about it all. Only 15 years ago, supposedly informed opinion, on the left and the right, confidently predicted that Australia would be a 21st-century republic. They were confounded — disgusted, even — when folks voted in a referendum to keep the monarchy. Now the Australian media is having its tummy tickled by William and Kate — and, much to its embarrassment, it can’t help liking it. What on earth will you put on your front pages and newscasts when they’ve gone, I tease.